Week 15- Criticism Video Review

1. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you have learned.

Greenberg on Art Criticism: An Interview by T.J. Clark

Cement Greenberg quoted, “writing about visual art is much tougher than writing about literature or music”. He reads the works of music critic Tovey to remind himself about “how to e relevant”. Greenberg and Clark discuss art critics Ruskin and Degaro. They also discuss prejudices in art criticism and the best art of the last fifty years. Green berg feels it has been predominantly abstract. Greenberg discusses abstract art, which included David Smith and elitism in art. He commented on intuition, reasoning, and relevance in art criticism. He says the great critics of the past like Ruskin and Sylvester weren’t philosophical but knew the nature of the value judgment. He discusses if modern art has proved itself or not. He explained his reasoning behind his writing a book on aesthetics and his lack of desire to discuss history.

Greenberg on Pollock: An Interview by T.J. Clark
Greenberg remembers Jackson Pollock in the 1940s when he was told Pollock would one day be a great painter. In the summer of 1947, Pollock paints his first spatter-drip piece. He received the Guggenheim Award, Pollock explains that he will paint large, moveable pictures that will function between the easel and the mural. He has a disdain for easel paintings, but yet his own paintings were easel paintings. He knew that his own paintings were not murals. He knew hat his paintings were transitional works form the easel to a mural. The element of size was not critical to the historical placement of Pollock’s paintings. The most important part was his departure from the contained, boxed characteristic of modern paintings. He moved away from containment and orderliness. He was associated with Dionysian painting. Greenberg comments on the characterization. He argued that the only demand on art is that is to be good art. Pollock rejected some of his canvasses. Greenberg argued that the paintings simply failed not because of technique but because they simply failed to the eye. Pollock choose his particular way of applying paint to canvas because of the way the paint broke the plane or how the paint “cut”. The technique was a way to release the requirements of his wrist elbow and shoulder. His drip paintings can be characterized as Apollonian rather than Dionysian. No one has successfully explained what makes a painting succeed or fail. Pollock felt isolated and alone in the art world and the world at large. Artists of this era wanted fame and money. Fame meant the exposure in magazines and newspapers. Their desire for money was not mercenary, but a practical need to live better. Pollock did not achieve any fame as much as he did notoriety. He might sell one picture a year. He realized that his work would not be accepted as painting. His contemporaries put his work outside of what they called painting. At the end of his life, he said that he didn’t take enough time looking at the Impressionists. With having an early death, this was a romantic ideal for Pollock.

An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance (Giorgio Vasari)

The Renaissance is marked by a renewed enthusiasm in the arts and many Italian artists contributed to its development. Ancient Romans create art from natural beauty until Barbarians conquer the empire. Artistic endeavors travel east to the Byzantine Empire who focuses on religious themes. Giotto is one of the first artists to revive the realistic style to the Romans by using perspective found in architecture and landscape. Ghiberti creates beautiful door panels of Biblical scenes from the Book of Genesis with a realistic vision of the human form. Donatello’s sculpture, “David” is standing in “contrapposto”. Even though the figure is standing on one left, it appears balances. Nudes reflected the beauty of the human form. Uccello creates new views of human and animal figures. Masaccio’s figures reveal physical and psychological depth. Christianity was conveyed through art. “The Birth of Venus” celebrates the beauty of the human form and uses techniques learned from preceding artists. Da Vinci applied science and math into art. Raffaello is influenced by da Vinci. He is considered to be the master of composition. Michelangelo drives for perfection, creating a powerful symbol of the republic. The painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Florence represents man’s relationships to God.

The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages

Media artists express their negative opinions about critics. Critics get us to think. A Washington Post book critic sees hid job as “lighting the way” for readers. Fil critics help people get the most out of their film dollar. Criticism can also be fun for readers and viewers. Criticism of media arts improves the media in general. Critics can keep artists on their toes. Book critics are likely the most influential in their ability to benefit new writers. A New York Times book critic take pride in promoting new, good books, but asserts that there are many bad books being written. Critics who are successful enjoy their craft. Some critics develop their love of reading and enjoying plays and shows as very young children. A music critic, passionate about his work, wants the world to experience the same love for music that he has. Professional critics often find themselves acting as reporters. A review is an informed opinion, and criticism is more analytical. Reviewers write for audiences who are unfamiliar with a particular piece of work, where a critic expects that their readers are already familiar with the work. Criticism takes a wider view. Criticism is generally delivered by someone willing to take a stand and make an argument. Superior criticism is characterized by how well it makes its argument, how it touches on the human experience, and how useful are it touches on the human experience, and how useful are its insights. Emotional impact is part of criticism as it helps make a persuasive argument either in favor or against the art are artist. Effective criticism requires logic, emotional, and personal credibility of the critic. The best critics start with their depth and breadth of knowledge. Critics understand the media artists thy write about an help their readers come to those same understandings. Critics understand how to apply their critical tools appropriately, such as applying the elements of country music only to country artists not to hip-hop. Critics must break down their particular media art into components. Critics use six skills, which are critical thinking skills, critics then evaluate and draw conclusions, leaving the reader to agree or disagree, or to spark curiosity. Good criticism must e well constructed and well written. Critics often change voices when they write; they usually have a specific audience in mind when they write. Books, film, television and music critics share their personal approach to criticisms and specific techniques each uses. Critics study their medium carefully, take notes, and work to get their reviews or criticism correct. With media art, critics use platforms to widen their cultural issues. Media critics share the most challenging parts of their jobs. The economics of today’s newspapers often force the critic to also take the role of reported and the danger of this is called boosterism. Critics work in different media genre such as books or film, but also genres within a genre such as classical music, jazz, or country western. The internet provides a new and diverse forum for critics and their followers. The key to becoming a critic is to learn to write, to write and to write. Criticism is often associated with negativity, and is actually the practice of analyzing, classifying, interpreting or even evaluating literary or other artistic works.

The Colonial Encounter: Views of Non-Western Art and Culture

Dahome art is visually beautiful, but it is often ignored as art and treated as a craft. The 1900 Paris World Fair ran for 8 months. The colonial factions exposed the underlying nationalism of the even. Half the area was devoted to the French imperialism while the rest represented other nations’ colonies. The image of the colonies in the late 19h and early 20^th centuries was not coherent or consistent. While most countered were symbolized b famous monuments of each country, the Dahomian exhibit consisted of a group of thatched structures that suggested that there was no civilized infrastructure. Images of the African people showed violent behavior toward each other, fostering the notion that they are savages who might also turn against Europeans. Colonialism was justified this way. Three figures from the 1900 Paris World Fair represent the three aspects of African people. A symbolic image from Dahome displayed at this exhibit is the form of stylized shark. The shark symbolized Dahome’s determination to protect its shores. At the 1900 world fair Algeria was treated differently from Dahome. Algeria has much longer history of colonization than Dahome. The country’s exhibits are displayed on two palaces. The Algeria exhibit is symptomatic of a much larger transformation that took place at the end of the 19^th century. This transformed travel into tourism. The proliferation of portraits of Algerian women insured their familiarity to a broad public. This promotes the conflation of dance with promiscuity in Arab women. Naked African men and women in caged enclosures along with exotic species of the animal kingdom was considered nudity. Europeans justify the pornographic nature of photographs of indigenous as scientific and artistic study. In the eves of the women, it is a refusal to appear satisfied with their treatment. The Trocadero Museum is the French monument at the heart of the colonial exhibition in the 1900 world fair. Th French created a dichotomy between the Dahome and Algerian exhibits. Today the former French colonies are independent; they are still linked politically and economically with the west. Colonial material culture is elevated to the level of art in the colonial exhibits at the 1900 world fair. The exhibits are devoid of information about the cultural meaning these objects have within the indigenous cultures. Exhibitions of material culture are displayed throughout the West. They show no connection with cultural meaning, and are evaluated through the eyes of western viewers who believe they are seeing art rather than material cultural objects. In contemporary display of Palestinian costumes, the contemporary political context is integral to the display. The display exposes cultural erosion as well as resilient transformation in light of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Indigenous material culture on display as art in Western collections can be tied to an appreciation by descendants of the original objects.

Jackson Pollok: Michael Fried an T.J. Clark in Conversation

Fried and Clark agreed that Pollock is an enormously important modernist mater who raises many questions with his work. They also acknowledge that he has been used as a negative point of reference for modern art. They also agreed that Pollock’s importance in modern art but have offered conflicting reasons. Clark has an emphasis on the historical role of modern art while Fried focused on the independence of its aesthetic. Fried explains his opposition to art news in and the rhetoric of art in the art news written in the 1950s. He strongly dislikes the description of art in vulgar existentialist terms. Fried’s early modernism stemmed from a rejection of the existentialist concept of action painting. Clark is weary of existeritial melodrama but as a social historian has been concerned with relating art to other human action. Clark discusses the quality of Pollock’s Lavender Mist. He defines quality as the ability of a painting to articulate the conditions of human beings at a particular movement. Fried and Clark find what makes Pollock’s work critical cant be disentangled from describing what he has done. In this way the concentration his work requires challenges the distraction endemic in the wider culture. They discuss Pollock in front of Autumn Rhythm. They both agree on the need for historical accounts of Pollock’s radical abstractions but also that its historical significance cant be separated from it pictorial quality. Clark and Fried are both committed to a historical way of looking at art and realize that they are redefining the terms with which they speak of Pollock’s work to reach a place of agreement over his historical importance.

2. Do the videos relate to the creation of your Art Criticism project? If yes, explain how. If no, explain why not.

The videos relate to the creation of my Art Criticism project. The videos discuss art criticism as a term and all the type of criticism there is. It gives a lot more background information about this topic.

3. What is your opinion on the films? Do the films add depth to understanding art criticism?

I thought the films were very helpful and added a lot more depth to the understanding of art criticism. The films described criticism as a term but also the different types and the way a person goes about criticism. They definitely taught me a lot more about this topic than I knew already. These videos were very useful.